When is something that looks like an appositive not an appositive?

Posted on November 28, 2023 | Leave a comment

Because the SAT will be given on Saturday, I want to point out a grammar problem that might confuse students.  I call it “nonappositives” though there is no such word.  First let me define terms.

An appositive follows the noun it describes.  It is surrounded by commas.  It can be removed from the sentence and the sentence still makes sense.  It can be thought of as a nonessential part of a sentence.  For example,

“Mrs. Smith, my English teacher, speaks three languages.”  In this sentence, “my English teacher” is the appositive.  It describes “Mrs. Smith.”  “My English teacher” can be removed from the sentence and the sentence will still make sense.  “My English teacher” is nonessential information in the sentence, and therefore it is surrounded by commas.

A nonappositive (no such word) also follows a noun.  It is not surrounded by commas.  It cannot be removed from a sentence or the sentence no longer makes sense.  It can be thought of as an essential part of a sentence.  For example,

“Taylor Swift’s song “Love Story” refers to the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.”  In this sentence, “Love Story” is the nonappositive.  Like an appositive it follows a noun (song).  But it cannot be removed from the sentence for the sentence to make sense.  Because it is essential information, “Love Story” is not surrounded by commas.

On the writing part of the SAT, you might be given four options for including commas or not including them.  The “Love Story” options might be

  1. No change (Keep the sentence as it is written above.)
  2. “Love Story,”
  3. “Love Story”,
  4. Love Story,

Here are some other nonappositives:

Frank Sinatra’s album No One Cares is his saddest collection of songs.  (You can’t remove the name of the album and have a sentence that makes sense.)

Nixon the diplomat is more respected by historians than Nixon the politician.  (You can’t remove “the diplomat” or “the politician” and have the sentence make sense.)

Former Mayor of New York Rudolph Giuliani was once a federal prosecutor.  (You can’t remove the man’s name and have a sentence that makes sense.)

The novel Emma is Jane Austen’s most satirical.  (You can’t remove Emma and have a sentence that makes sense.)

Good luck on the test.

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Posted in appositives, SAT

Three qualities of Tolstoy’s writing you can use to improve your own

Posted on November 2, 2023 | Leave a comment

I am always hunting for information on how to write better.  Most of what I find I’ve found before.  But occasionally I find new insights, as I did last week when I read a biography of the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy by A. N. Wilson.

Tolstoy is considered a literary genius based on his two most famous novels, War and Peace (published serially beginning in 1865), and Anna Karenina (1875).  I learned three important ideas to improve my writing from reading Wilson’s biography.

First, Tolstoy’s stories contain “hardly an incident, conversation or character” that is not autobiographical, according to Wilson.  War and Peace “evolved out of Tolstoy’s purely private preoccupations and fantasies with his own family.” “Almost every particle of War and Peace bears a relation to something in Tolstoy’s personal experience.”

His epic story of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia centers on the Rostovs, a family based on his wife’s real family, the Bers.  The animated Natasha Rostov is based on the personality of Tolstoy’s young sister-in-law, Tatyana Bers.  When Tolstoy’s wife, Sofya, was pregnant and unwell, Tolstoy took Tatyana to a ball. Their experience becomes the famous ball scene in which Natasha dances with Prince Andrey.  Princess Marya’s isolated existence in the countryside is based on Tolstoy’s mother’s and wife’s lives, one imagined and one observed.  His own life as a soldier in the Crimean War became the basis for the Nikolay Rostov’s fighting Napoleon.

Second, Tolstoy’s characters are so believable because he knew most of them intimately as real people.  While writing, he infused himself into their souls as he brought them to life.  He became each character as he wrote, finding aspects of each character that we, the readers, can sympathize with.  Each character “is imagined with all the intensity of Tolstoy’s being.  He is each character.”

Tolstoy took people born a generation or more after the events of 1812 and transposed their ages and relationships.  The characters were so true to life that his family recognized themselves as they read the pages of the novel.

He also used his eye for telling details to make his characters believable.  For example, Princes Marya practiced “a Dusek sonata, the difficult passages repeated twenty times.”  The Rostov carriage “dove down the straw-laid street.”  Jealous Sonya “turned pale, then red, and tried as hard as she cold to hear what Nikolai and Julie were saying to each other.”

Third, Tolstoy focuses on scenes, not on plot or historical accuracy.  In Anna Karenina, the first part of the story moves from one scene to another:  Stiva’s half-hearted regret for his affair with the French governess, Levin’s club dinner with Stiva, Levin’s meeting with Kitty at the ice skating rink, Anna’s arrival at the Moscow train station where she meets Vronsky, the home party where Kitty refuses Levin’s proposal, the dance where Kitty realizes Vronsky is in love with Anna, the snowy train scene where Anna is agitated by memories of Vronsky.  Each scene contains one essential quality:  the forward thrust of life.  These scenes are like short stories strung loosely together by the actions of repeating characters.

Of course, analyzing a great writer, and understanding what makes his or her writing great, does not guarantee that a writer will write well.  I have heard some people advise to hand write, word for word, a paragraph of a great writer, and then to substitute words to make your own writing great.

A much better idea, I think, is to look at these three qualities of Tolstoy’s writing and incorporate them into your own fiction.  Base characters on people you know well.  Describe them as completely as you can, warts and all.  And show them off in scenes where they live fully.

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Posted in adding details, analysis, Anna Karenina, believable characters, English Writing Instruction, Leo Tolstoy, use autobiography in fiction, War and Peace, writing scenes, writing tips

Delete ‘very’

Posted on September 25, 2023 | Leave a comment

When I revise essays with my students, I suggest deleting the word “very.”

Why? they ask.

I tell them that “very” weakens writing, not strengthens it.

How can that possibly be? they wonder.  Isn’t “very” meant to intensify a word?

Yes, it is meant to strengthen an adjective.  But the consensus of writing experts is that “very” weakens ideas, not strengthens them.

So what is a writer to do?

  • Replace weak or mediocre adjectives with strong ones, according to writerswrite.co.va. Instead of writing “afraid,” write “terrified.”  Instead of “old,” write “ancient.”  Instead of “fast,” write “quick.”
  • According to prowritingadi.com, very has no “inherent” meaning.  “Very” contains not enough new information to be useful to the reader.  Instead write strong verbs and adjectives.

Lists of weak words and stronger synonyms are available online.  Just search for “How to replace ‘very’ and you will find many.

If you are a teacher, you can discourage students from using “very” by having a contest.  On a given written or speaking assignment, students who don’t use “very” could put their names in a bowl, and at the end of a week or a month or an assignment, you could draw a name and provide a small prize.

You could write a passage using weak verbs and adjectives and the word “very,” and see what alternatives small groups of students can come up with to replace the weak words.

Using “very” is a habit like overusing any word (just, like, then, and so, for example).  With practice, students will self-edit the word out of their writing.

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Posted in English Writing Instruction, very

Edgar Allan Poe’s four rules for writing

Posted on August 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

Many writers have left us rules for writing well.  Here are four of Edgar Allan Poe’s rules for writing his plot-driven narratives:

  • Plan every plot backward, with the ending in sight, before any sentences are written. (“Every plot. . .must be elaborated to its dénouement before anything be attempted with the pen.”)

 

  • Once you know the ending you want, backtrack and develop the incidents and tone that lead to that ending. (“Only with the dénouement constantly in view. . .we can give a plot its indispensable air of consequence, or causation, by making the incidents, and especially the tone at all points, tend to the development of the intention.”)

 

  • Consider the effect you wish to show. (“Of the innumerable effects, or impressions, of which the heart. . .is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present occasion, select?”)

 

  • Decide whether that effect can be achieved through ordinary incidents or through a particular tone. (“I consider whether it can be best wrought by incident or tone. . . . afterward looking [within] me. . .for such combinations of event, or tone, as shall best aid me in the construction of the effect.

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Posted in Edgar Allan Poe, English Writing Instruction, rules for writing

What makes a ending good for a novel?

Posted on August 9, 2023 | Leave a comment

Jane Austen is one of my favorite novelists, but all six of her books have one flaw:  the endings disappoint.  She develops memorable characters; writes witty dialog; satirizes ladies, clergy and parents with aplomb; and refreshes her formula (girl gets boy) so that each plot unfolds beguilingly.  But when she reaches a book’s end, she seems incapable of writing a truly satisfying ending.  Is she out of ideas?  Tired?  Wanting to move on?

Some authors write books with wonderful endings, but they keep writing past that good ending so their actual ending isn’t so good.  Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace’s perfect ending is when Pierre, now free to marry, encounters Natasha after the war.  He thinks, “Can it be that this hand, this face, these eyes, all this treasure of feminine loveliness that is stranger to me now, can it be that it will all be eternally mine, habitual, the same as I am for myself?  No, it’s impossible!”  Natasha, as if reading his mind, responds, “I’ll be waiting very much for you.”  This is the novel’s natural culmination, yet the book continues for another 100 pages.

Writing a satisfying ending is hard whether it be for a novel, TV series or film.  Is the cut to blackness as Tony Soprano sits in a restaurant with his family a good ending or a cop-out?  Is it a good ending when the mortally wounded gunslinger, Shane, rides into the darkness while little Joey yells, “Shane!  Come back, Shane”?  How about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ending to The Great Gatsby:  “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”  Is that a great ending?

There is not one perfect ending that will work for every novel.  But good endings have recognizable characteristics:

  • Good endings are organic to the story. When a “god” or savior-type character arrives at the last minute, that is not a good ending because such a situation is not true to life.  A good ending must flow naturally from the plot.  To Kill a Mockingbird’s ending is a good one because Atticus puts Scout to bed the way he often does, and they have a gentle conversation, the way they often do, before Atticus moves on to Jem’s room where Atticus will watchall night over his unconscious son.  Huckleberry Finn’s ending is a bad one because  all the coincidences that come together to free Jim are unlikely.  The reader doesn’t believe the ending.  Lord of the Flies also offers an unsatisfactory ending.  Just as Ralph is about to be slaughtered by uncivilized boys, a naval officer appears and Ralph is saved.
  • Some good endings show that justice wins. Tony Soprano, a mafia boss who has ordered the murder of others, is himself murdered–or so many think.  In Silas Marner, Silas’s gold is restored, and the child whom he has rescued chooses to live with him rather than with the rich  birth father who earlier rejected her.  In most children’s stories, the bad guy loses and the good guy wins.
  • Many good endings show that justice loses. In Raymond Chandler’s first novel, The Big Sleep, the private detective is complicit in allowing a murderer to avoid arrest, a trial, and prison time.   In The Great Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan continues with her careless life despite killing her husband’s mistress.  In the film Chinatown a private eye  watches helplessly while a  woman protecting her daughter dies in gunfire and that woman’s rapist takes control of her daughter.   In Of Mice and Men one friend murders another to protect him from the cruelty he will likely face in a prison.
  • Some good endings restore harmony. At the end of Romeo and Juliet, the feud between the Capulets and Montagues ends.  Rochester and Jane Eyre are reunited without the impediment of Rochester’s demented wife in Jane Eyre.
  • Some good endings have unexpected twists.  Around the World in 80 Days ends with Philias Fogg short of winning his bet to circle the glove by one day—no wait, by one hour—no wait, by nine minutes.  He rushes to the whist club with seconds to spare.  This ending is organic because Fogg’s servant, Passepartout, is fastidious about the time, and doesn’t realize he has lost 24 hours by traveling east.

The test to a great ending is this:  Are you the reader satisfied?  You may want the story to continue because it is a great story, but since it doesn’t, are you content and even pleased with the ending?  If so, for you it is a great ending.

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Posted in English Writing Instruction